


Absence makes the heart grow fonder

by Katseester



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon Compliant, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, tucker ships it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 17:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14360256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katseester/pseuds/Katseester
Summary: Or, Simmons mopes and pines after Grif during his absence. Tucker is really,reallygetting tired of it. Set during season 15.





	Absence makes the heart grow fonder

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this while season 15 was still airing and then school happened and I haven't had time to write _anything_ , but now I'm mostly free so I decided to re-work this and finish it up. Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> (Set loosely during the back half of season 15, with some sliiiiight changes to fit my fancy.)

"Oh my  _g_ _od,_ Simmons, your moping is pathetic."

"Wha - _moping_ ? I am not - _moping_ ," Simmons splutters, turning wildly to fix Tucker with an incredulous, frenzied stare. Or, at least, Tucker  _t_ _hinks_ that's the kind of look he's getting. Kind of hard to see behind the visor.

"Dude," Tucker says, matter of fact. "You are kind of moping."

This journey to find Church and save his melodramatic, screechy ass would be going a lot smoother if Simmons weren't staring out the window and sighing wistfully every five minutes.

Simmons grumbles incoherently.

* * *

The moping devolves into pining, which is infinitely more pathetic.

"Is this what they mean by 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'?" Simmons asks. They're in the middle of dinner - fish again - and it comes completely unprompted.

"Dude, what," Tucker says.

"You know, that saying that means - "

" _I_ _know what the saying means_."

"Yeesh. Someone's pissy."

Tucker sighs, aggravated, and stabs his meal with his fork. "If you miss him so much, just  _call_ him."

Simmons makes an affronted noise. "I do not  _miss Grif -_ "

"Oh yeah? Then how'd you know who I was talking about?"

"That's - "

"Oh, are we talking about how much Simon misses Gruff? Because I also miss Gruff quite a lot, even if he sometimes stole my socks and slept in my bed and messed up my sheets - oh, and accidentally dropped Freckles off a cliff that one time even though I have my suspicions it was not quite as accidental as he made it out to be..."

"Yeah, thanks, Caboose," Tucker interjects, before he can start really picking up steam and then lead them down a completely unrelated tangent about oranges or thermonuclear dynamics or something equally dumb. "That makes two of you."

* * *

The pining, naturally, devolves into Tucker shuffling into the kitchen at three in the morning for a glass of water and finding Simmons slumped over a half-melted tub of ice cream, spoon still in hand.

"Um," he says, instead of just turning around and leaving like a  _sane_ person would do, and Simmons jolts upright, glaring at Tucker as though he's committed some untenable offense towards him.

"What are you doing here," he hisses, pulling the ice cream closer to himself.

"This is a common area," Tucker says, rooted to the spot. "Why are you eating ice cream at three in the morning?"

Simmons stares down at the ice cream like he's just now noticing he's been holding onto it for dear life this entire exchange. "I just - got a hankering for it?" he says.

"Uh huh. Sure." Tucker starts moving towards the cupboards. "I'm just gonna. Get some water and go. You can keep having your break-up pity-party though, don't let me stop you."

Simmons puffs up like an angry chicken, indignant. " _E_ _xcuse_ me?"

Tucker doesn't even raise an eyebrow at him as he sidles out of the room.

* * *

Grif does a shitty rescue. Grif ends up in the cell beside Simmons. Grif says something about quitting being hard and something else about volleyballs and Simmons looks like he might cry. Tucker isn't really paying attention because Caboose is _actually_ crying and he's gotta pretend he knows how to comfort the big guy.

(He doesn't. He just sort of grimaces and nods and gives Caboose a few pats on the shoulder whenever a particularly large sniff makes its way out of his nose.)

He does notice, though, that as they're sitting there - waiting, just waiting. For what? Temple to come back and shoot them all point blank? Grif's supposed "diversion" to work? Tucker doesn't know - Grif's fingers inch towards the bars separating him and Simmons and Simmons -

Oh my god, Simmons' fingers inch towards Grif's until they're sort of overlapping through the bars and they're pointedly not looking at each other but Tucker can see the red flush on Simmon's face and ears and he wants to _scream_.

 _Just fucking kiss_ , he wants to yell at them, even though he's still pissed at Grif on the basis that he's a gigantic lazy asshole. _Now would be the perfect time!_

They don't kiss, to Tucker's unsurmountable frustration, which means they're going to keep moping and dancing around the issue even though it _should not be an issue,_ for fuck's sake, _everyone can see it_.

Caboose sniffles quietly from his corner of the cell.

* * *

 Earth. It actually really sucks so far, except for -

"Simmons, I've got another thing to tell you - "

"Can it wait? Kind of in the middle of a firefight right now - "

"- I've spent a loooooot of time thinking - "

"This is _really_ not the time - "

"- but I've got this thing, this other thing, and I've really gotta say it - "

"What is it?! If you're trying to tell me you're hungry while we're dodging bullets - "

"No, it's - "

" - or if you want to tell me you left the oven on back at base _I don't care -_ "

"For fuck's sake let me - "

" - _or_ if you tell me you forgot to turn the sink off in the bathroom I don't believe you because you don't know what personal hygiene is - "

"No, you fucking idiot, I'm in love with you!"

"What?!" Simmons squawks.

"What?!" Grif squawks, right back.

"I'm in love with you too, dumbass!" Simmons shouts, and then has to duck back behind the barricade of sandbags to avoid a bullet to the head.

"Great!" Grif yells, and then he's gone in a burst of methshroom-induced speed.

"Jesus christ," Tucker yells, because this is ridiculous and _awesome_ and the adrenaline pumping through his veins is making him downright giddy. He can't believe it took this goddamn long for them to finally admit it, and while Grif is high off methshrooms and they're pinned down by enemy Zealots, no less. He can't wait to rub it in Wash's face -

(If Wash survives. Which he will, because he's a tenacious bastard and he's survived worse, much worse; taking a bullet through the neck is nothing compared to having your mind shredded and rubbed raw to bleeding by some fucked up AI, right? He'll be fine, right?)

The slope is a flurry of chaotic confusion; Grif is running from one end of the battlefield to another in the blink of an eye, Donut is lobbing grenades left and right, and Caboose is an absolute shoelace-tying menace. The warthog Sarge and Simmons are terrorizing the enemy team with gets blown up. Sarge and Simmons jump from it, landing heavily in the middle of no-man's land. No one notices one of the enemy sim troopers hefting a rocket launcher onto his shoulder and aiming it at Simmons' exposed body as he picks himself up from the fall.

Tucker sees Grif streak past him, throwing his shoulder squarely against Simmons' chest and knocking the other man out of the way. He sees the way Grif's body seizes up for the briefest of instances before crumpling forward with a _clunk_ onto the ground. He sees how Simmons lands heavily on his ass, skidding back from the force of Grif's push, hears a cry that has nothing to do with the impact tear itself from Simmons throat before he begins scrabbling for purchase to reverse the momentum. He sees how Simmons all but launches himself out of cover and back to Grif's unmoving body, heaving him over his shoulder and dragging him over to safety.

He doesn't have time to pay attention to Simmons much after that, because then he's returning fire, missing, cursing his shitty-ass fucking aim, and pulling his sword out, leaping at the nameless troopers, doing some cool shit with a tank and punting Lorenzo's head into the stratosphere.

Oh, and then he punches that tank to death, because he is just. That. Awesome.

"Grif," he can hear Simmons saying, voice cracking on the diphthong. "No, I can't - if you're dead I'm going to be _so fucking pissed_ \- "

Tucker passes behind the sandbags in time to see Simmons pop the release and pull Grif's helmet from his head.

He doesn't looks great, but, well. If Tucker's being honest Grif never really looks great, but this is somehow _worse_.

"Christ," he says, but Simmons ignores him, pressing his fingers to Grif's neck in an attempt to find a pulse.

"No," he says, mostly to himself. "No, no, no, this can't be _happening_. We were supposed to tap dance on a roof - "

Tucker has no idea what he's babbling about.

"Sorry, man," he says, crouching down next to them. "But I think he's..."

Just then Grif pulls in a gasping breath, eyes snapping open, and Tucker lets out an undignified yelp, losing his balance and teetering over backwards.

"Don't write me off, you dick," Grif grouses, and it's so _corny_ , but Simmons pulls off his own helmet and the look he's giving Grif is about ten times worse.

"Hey, asshole."

"Hey, loser."

Grif rolls over and throws up some disgusting swill of methshrooms and doritos. Simmons holds his hair back and pats him on the back.

It's so sweet it makes Tucker want to puke, too.

* * *

He had _thought_ that with all that shit over - the botched rescue which turned out to be an actual rescue, the confessing, the almost-dying, the Grif waking up with a cheesy one-liner and Simmons looking like he wanted to take him _right then and there_ \- things would be more simple. He had _thought_ that those two idiots would finally get over themselves and just, god, make out or something?

As it turns out Grif got tasered by some behemoth Frankenstein invention Loco had made that pierced right through the kevlar. But Grif also apparently has the resilience of a goddamn Brute because he's back on his feet within the half hour pretending, quite loudly, that he _did not_ confess his undying love to his dumb fucking teammate minutes before nearly dying because Loco doesn't understand the meaning of _restraint_. And Simmons, for his part, has also been quite loudly, quite squeakily, pretending that he did not _also_ confess his undying love to his teammate and Tucker - Tucker is tired.

"I don't _care_ ," Tucker says for what feels like the tenth time in as many minutes, "that your heart stopped. I _do not care_ that you got stabbed with a taser prong the size of a stapler. I care about the gross googly eyes you two made at each other as soon as you woke your ass up, because Jesus _C_ _hrist_ it has been ten years - it has been _more than ten years_ \- and god help me if I don't find you another closet to lock you in so you can bone in peace I'm going to go fucking insane from the UST that has been radiating off of you two for, let me remind you, _more than ten years_."

Grif says, "It has not been _more than ten years_ ," as Simmons shrieks, " _BONE_?!" and Tucker can't take it. He cannot fucking take it anymore.

"CLOSET. NOW. I'M FINDING YOU ONE. GOODBYE."

* * *

 "Where's Jax?" Dylan asks. They're about to grab all their shit and get the hell off of Earth.

"Probably still out cold," Simmons answers.

"What? Again? Why is he out cold?"

"He slipped. Again."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Asshole doesn't know the meaning of privacy," Grif grumbles, and this makes Tucker whip around.

"ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU TWO MADE OUT AND I WASN'T THERE TO SEE IT," he shouts, and that brings all conversation around them to a halt. Several helmets swivel in their direction.

"What?" Carolina says, and manages somehow to make that single word sound flat and exasperated.

"I don't understand how Gruff and Simon are supposed to kiss when they're wearing their helmets. Wouldn't that just get in the way? Do their helmets have lips?"

"Oh my _goodness_ they _kissed_?" Jensen squeals.

"¿Por qué no me sorprende que les haya llevado tanto tiempo descubrir una de las emociones más básicas de la humanidad _?" ("Why am I not surprised that it took them this long to figure out one of humanity's most basic emotions?")_

"Yes, Lopez, why _were_ they slacking off in the middle of a war?" Sarge asks, cocking his shotgun threateningly.

"Eso no es lo que dije y lo sabes." _("That is not what I said and you know it.")_

"Exactly! To think that you, Grif, have finally corrupted my most faithful, most weak-willed, most spineless soldier into your hedonistic lifestyle of slobbery. What did you tempt him with? Was it a twinkie?"

"I didn't tempt anyone with anything," Grif complains.

"And we didn't - we haven't - Jax always thinks we're going to but we _weren't_ \- "

"I was," Grif offers sourly, and Simmons makes a sound like a fork going through the garbage disposal.

"Are you telling me you _haven't_ made out yet?" Tucker asks, scandalized. He doesn't know which is worse. "I found you a closet! I locked you in there for, like, ten minutes. That should've been more than enough time to get it on, you two probably haven't been touched in, like, _ages_."

"You locked them in a closet?" Carolina asks, hand on her hip in her classic _I'm really not impressed with the situation right now but I'm also curious and don't want to make it look like I care_ position. "Why did you lock them in a _closet_?"

"I was just trying to recreate the whole Temple of Procreation thing - "

"I AM GOING TO GO GET JAX SINCE WE ARE LEAVING RIGHT NOW IMMEDIATELY," Simmons says, very loudly.

"I'M GOING WITH HIM," Grif says, also very loudly.

"Bow-chika-bow-wow," Tucker whistles as they beat a hasty retreat.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry for Lopez. I used google translate.


End file.
